


Cookies, hot cocoa and comfort

by Merelina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cookies, F/M, Friendship, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, No Fluff, No Smut, natascha needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:31:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merelina/pseuds/Merelina
Summary: Bucky doesn't really know what to do with himself until Nat introduces him to a friend of hers. She bakes him cookies, isn't afraid of him and shows him friendship and kindness without any expectations.





	Cookies, hot cocoa and comfort

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote some Bucky sweetness because he really deserves a hug. No smut or fluff just friendship and a kind heart.

“You just have to hand this off to her?”  
“Problem is it's never just handing things off with her. She has the best hot cocoa in the world and usually homemade cookies to go with it. There is no quick in and out with her. So, come on up."  
Normally he would've waited in the car, but the heating was shot to hell and it was really cold. He turned the car off with a sigh and got out.  
He followed Nat up some stairs in an old but decent looking apartment building. They climbed the stairs, and she knocked on an old wooden door with a brass 4a on it. He placed himself next to the door, back against the wall when it opened.  
"Nat! Hey sweetie! Come on in! And great timing as always, cookies are done in 5! Just enough time to make hot cocoa. You look like hell by the way, do you even want hot cocoa? Or shall I pour you some whiskey?" Nat just smiled and walked inside following the chattering voice. The woman was still talking about whiskey when Nat tried to interrupt her. "Kat..." The woman didn't hear her and continued to babble. It was already driving him crazy, people talk too much these days. Nat tried again, a little louder.  
"Katarina! Stop talking." Acute silence, and Nat's sigh.  
"This is my friend Bucky, you've heard of him on the news. He's not talking much but I think he would like some cookies as well." While talking she grabbed him, pulled him inside and shut the door behind him. In front of him in the middle of the small room stood a young woman with dark curls down to her waist. And what a waist it was, no skinny thing, with ribs jutting out above it, but not too much waist either. Real curves, just the way he liked them. His eyes shifted up to her breasts and found them also just the way he liked them. Round and soft-looking but not too big. 'A good handful' he would've described them in the past. He didn't talk that much anymore these days. His eyes landed on her face, a smile on her lips, her eyes bright green, looking at him. She stuck her hand out at him and he shook it. Before he could say anything though, she turned around and walked to the tiny kitchen. "You look even worse than Nat, dear god. Did you just come back from a mission or something?" She opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of milk. "So have you made up your mind about cocoa or whiskey yet?" She looked expectantly from Nat to him. "Ehm... Yes?" he answered realizing he didn't really listen to what she had said. She giggled and looked at him "now that is an answer I like!" She turned around and poured the milk in a pan and put it on her stove. She opened another cabinet and rummaged around when suddenly a timer went off. He had a weapon out before he thought about it, finding the source, ready to kill it. She didn't turn around, but slammed her hand to her left silencing the alarm on her phone, lying on the counter. He suddenly feels kind of silly pointing a gun at a phone, but his muscles are still frozen in action mode. "Don't shoot my phone please, and be a sweetheart and take the cookies out of the oven will you." She closes the cabinet with a box of cocoa powder in her hand. She grabs three large mugs from a rack and busies herself making the cocoa. When he doesn't move, she slowly looks up. She walks towards him, puts a hand on his hand holding the gun and pushes it down. "Don't burn my cookies?" She indicates the oven with her head, and goes back to making the cocoa. She grabs a pot and puts sugar in the cups. He finally moves. He holsters his gun, opens the oven and grabs the tray out of the oven. "There's oven mitts over... Or you just take them out with your metal hand." He stares at her uncomfortably.  
Now what? he thinks, and as if she heard him she answers "oh here, put them down here" pointing at an empty space on the counter.  
She's done with the cocoa mix and pours milk over it in the mugs. She then mixes in some whiskey. She grabs three cookies, sets it all on a serving tray and turns around facing him with another smile "let's go sit down" he turns around and sees Nat already sitting at a small wooden table. Kat sets the tray down and hands out the mugs and cookies. He knows he should sit down but he is somehow still standing not knowing what is expected. Give him a battlefield, an assassination or sneaking around on people stealing something and he knows what to do, but this? Indecisive he stands in the kitchen door, until he feels a hand on his metal arm. Instinct tells him to yank his arm out of reach, but everything else in him tells him not to. He allows her to lead him to the table and she gently pushes him in a chair. "Here James, have a cookie." She hands him a cookie and puts a mug in front of him, a smell of chocolate and alcohol reaches his nose. She takes her hand from his arm and he feels... Regret?  
As he drinks his hot cocoa he thinks about her warm hand that showed no reluctance in touching him. As he eats his cookie he thinks about the last time anybody touched him without wanting something of him. Even now, out of Hydra's clutches everybody is extremely careful with him. Too careful, as if he’s made of glass about to break. He realises nobody touched him in a warm and kind in over 70 years, until this happy cheerful chatterbox just... just put her hand on his arm. On his left arm, the part of his body that scared people the most.  
He is taken out of his reverie by Nat standing up. "Well thanks again Kat for your always lovely hot cocoa, just what I needed. But we really have to get going." He follows her out the door. "No problem honey, you are always welcome here." She puts a hand on his shoulder "you too James. Anytime you want to drop in, just do."  
"Thank you. For..." He almost said for touching me, but he catches himself in time. "the drink and cookies."  
In the car back he asks Nat about Katarina, but it takes her a while to answer. "When I was completely down and out, when I was so very lost and alone that I didn't want or know how to live anymore, I tried jumping off a roof. I stood on the ledge, ready to go and I hear a voice behind me. She said I wasn't drunk enough." She smiles at the memory. "No one has gotten me as drunk as she did that night. And in the morning when I woke up on her couch, she was there." After a long silence she sighs "whenever I feel down I go to her. She's usually there.

Two weeks later

The mission went well, that isn't the problem. But the file they found after, now that was a problem. It described in detail how they attached his metal arm. Including what sedatives they used and how much of it. They only ever used a muscle relaxant. No painkillers. And as he read the file, he remembered. He remembered the searing pain, the terrifying desperation of not being able to move seeing that scalpel come closer to him. He struggled to find the strength to move, but he couldn't. Couldn't move. Couldn't move. Terror gripped him again, tears starting to rise. Steve was there with him, and lightly touched his elbow to take his mind back to present day.  
On the way back he was quiet, even more so than normal. He looked up and saw the others sitting together talking cheerfully to each other. Steve threw him some worried looks and started to rise, but he shook his head, he needed to be alone for now. Steve nodded and sat back down. He didn't really belong with the group. He knew it wasn't anybody's fault but his own. There was just too much of a mess in his head to socialize and make new friends. On the other hand he was desperate for human contact. He was trapped.  
Then the car stopped for a red light and he saw a coffee shop with a 'hot cocoa' sign flashing in neon in the window. Before he knows it, he's standing in front of her apartment. He looks up to her window, where the light shines through. He feels confused and conflicted about asking this stranger he met for 30 minutes two weeks ago to let her in her house to… to what exactly? Would it be odd if he just looked through the window? Probably, but by now he doesn’t care anymore, he’s tired and cold but he climbs the fire escape. He's quiet as always and she doesn't notice him watching her. She looks up from watching tv as if she feels him looking, and gets up to walk to the window. She opens it, “please tell me that’s you James and not some kind of creep, coming to murder me?” He smiles and shows himself, she breathes a sigh of relief. “Come on in then”

Once inside her apartment she takes an appraising look at him. "O dear" is all she says and she puts her hand on his arm, leading him to the couch. The warmth of her touch is all he really wants. Just her hand comforting him, leading him, easing him. He remembers a term in German that describes this perfectly: beruhigen*  
She sits next to him on the couch and looks at him. "No matter how weird, strange, odd or ridiculous it sounds, tell me why you are here and what you want." A simple sentence, Not so easily answered. He looks at his toes and wonders how stupid he’ll sound if he says "touch me" he whispered it but she heard him anyway. She tells him to sit on a pillow she threw on the ground in front of her. She puts on an action movie and combs his hair, much longer than really needed, and when she finally puts down the brush, she just trails her fingers over his shoulders, arms and neck. He sits and soaks it in, and halfway through the movie he feels himself finally relax. A smile, unseen behind him, and she starts asking him questions about the reality of the action in the movie. He smiles and tells her what's possible and what's at the very least unlikely. They watch 3 movies like that, but somewhere halfway the last one he drifts off to sleep. He sleeps on her couch that night, deeper than he has slept in a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Beruhige mich' is a combination of 'calm me down' and 'soothe me'. There really is no way to translate it into one word.
> 
> If you want to know how Kat makes her hot cocoa or cookies you can find me on Tumblr as RuinerofCheese (not just there for the hot cocoa though haha)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Friendship](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17133236) by [tigrislilium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrislilium/pseuds/tigrislilium)




End file.
